4 covenants, 4 characters

Community General Discussion
1

The word is the top guilds may, mostly likely will end up rolling 4 of each class they play just in the event one covenant gets a nerf or buff that gives an advantage.

While the whole class identity thing is great, players will undoubtedly sim everything and roll with the FoTM covenant, and at the upper echelon of play, the top class also, meaning some players will run 4 of multiple classes just for the slight advantage it may bring come game day.

Your character you have played for X time, out the door. Your identity you have built? Gone. All your history, your previous raids, your achievements, all for nothing.

What is really bad about this is the lower players who follow the top ranks, those who watch streams and check the raid logs, they are probably going to follow suit and, in all honesty, probably fail.

You see it now, a player changes class because they seen someone do X, but than have no idea how to really play, and do quite bad. We need this class identity thing to stick so players will find a class or two they really enjoy for the class, and not the numbers, than they can truly learn how to play them and actually do well.

Because I know for myself and many others, playing what you enjoy and doing it well is far more important than the numbers on the screen. Which is why I have shelved my priest I made in MoP, they are not the same as they once were, their identity has changed so much I finally gave up on them.

And I know many players who have played a class longer than that, and that’s great, but I don’t want to see players rolling 4 of this or that just because they see it as a numbers game rather than an RPG.

What if Blizzard could put a cap on DPS for the first of whatever? First raid kill, first dungeon clear at X level, first world boss kill, first of any content that is ran to ensure a fair playing field, than open it up to allow uncapped damage.

Blizzard may or may not look at the sims, but they do try and balance stuff somehow, so however it is they balance let’s say X class is the lowest DPS on their metrics. What if that than was the maximum DPS that could be done until X was killed?

Whatever it is, capping the DPS is the only idea I can currently think off that will allow players to go into world firsts with an equal chance and therefore shouldn’t need to farm 4 of each, which should stop the snowball effect of the not so good players trying to copy them and failing.

Whatever happens though happens, but I feel it much better if players pick a class they enjoy and learn to play them well rather than look at the numbers and decide from there.

8 Likes
2

Considering how faceroll fast leveling is in Alpha, won’t be difficult to have a plethora of a cast of an army of alts. I already have that, but many do not.

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What I’d wish they would do is just stop worrying about the number balance for a minute and focus on making every class fun in its own unique way. Before the changes to classes by the very end of WoD the classes were much more fun The way they do it now feels like every class is the same but some are a little stronger. Lol what reason is there really to pick one over the other BESIDES how well and easy it is to perform.

I miss wanting to play my rogue or hunter because they were so capable of helping groups or soloing in a different way, not because of how it was smashing things easily.

5 Likes
4

I just made a thread about this myself.

I think that with the level squish and removal of forging letting “Loot be Loot” will make this expansion extremely Alt Friendly. I wouldn’t despair if you felt the necessity of having to roll a new character if you wanted to play it safe and make one for each covenant.

This is just my new hunch on the matter.

2 Likes
5

It is certainly going to be alt friendly, but I fear it is going to be a precedent set that if you want to perform at the top level you will need one for each covenant because “The top raiders are doing it”.

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Well I could think of worse things for preforming at the top level running 4 alts. Think of all the things people have to do to play at top levels right now and that’s just for one character.

They are definitely making running alts very accommodable and the option to play in any expansion you want means you can set yourself up with some pretty optimal paths or enjoy an expansion you like the most. Less levels more streamlined.

With the lack there of a [insert here] Forging feature going forward it should be easier to gear up as well. Plus gives you a chance to level up multiple characters with other professions - professions are looking to be very viable this expansion as well.

This ain’t the first expansion I think where running alts was important. I would say that this one is up there in terms of it being less of a pain actually.

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Yikes, wouldn’t that mean DH players would have to create DH toons on other servers and pay to transfer them over?

If so, those dudes are way more dedicated than I could ever be.

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having a DH on a different server wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing since your guild can still just invite that one over to the raid :confused: No need to pay for anything. That being said if we’re talking about world first pushers or some crap I guess they could just pay for it… Course I’m not sure if the 1 DH restriction can be bypassed with server transfers and I don’t want to spend the cash to find out.

They may just get rid of that restriction if DH complain enough… ask for me… they’re DH so they can all suck eggs -3-

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It can. Tested long ago by creating a new one on a server I was transferring to.

Maybe. Took a while for them to remove the level 55 restriction on DKs though, so maybe not. I could be misremembering, but I recall having DKs be limited in number per server at one time as well. They obviously aren’t now, but I could almost swear they were in Wrath.

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but yeah I suppose if that becomes an issue world first pushers and those wanting to push the highest content will have to pay for transfers… but knowing that as a glaring issue the Devs would most likely remove that restriction so that it won’t effect DH players.

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Seems like it’d be easier to just not create a situation in which four toons are necessary to optimize covenants, honestly. If players have to go to that extreme, that’s a testament to trash-tier design.

2 Likes
13

I see these covenant abilities similar to the final ability in the old tech trees we used to have. Back then you had to choose which spec to focus on, since you couldn’t have the best of all worlds.

14

It’s much easier to lift a restriction on DH character creation than it is to undermine a complete foundational cornerstone for your whole expansion.

1 Like
15

You’re quite right, presumably, but if it’s that difficult to optimize for Mythic Raiders, unless there’s only the tiniest margin in efficacy between Covenants, regular players are gonna be pissy about it too.

If even one ability turns out to be far and away BiS, there will be mass calls for changes. That’s something to consider when weighing this possible pitfall’s impact.

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Current plan is to remove the limit. I’m hype boys.

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Indeed that is a the major issue, bad players who tell themselves they are good because they copy a meta build yet.

That culture needs to be eradicated and getting rid of certain cultures is definitely a hard task, covenants are an attempt to deal with that by making the average not so great player stop obsessing over min maxing since he wont get to have all 4 so the hope is they stop obsessing and simply get better by sticking to their class.

Will it work? nobody knows, we are gonna see.

18

Well seeing how with optimized leveling for all other classes and this covenant gameplay potentially causing people to run 4 alts… the only ones affected by it the most significantly atm be DH… I don’t think it will be an issue.

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World 1st players go through extreme measures and will continue to do so.

Players who follow will most likely choose the best covenant for min/maxing just like they choose the best race for their class while those who don’t care about min/maxing will choose what looks best.

This has been a thing since Vanilla.

1 Like
20

That’s pretty neat, although I don’t know if I’d ever need two DHs on the same realm unless I was playing one of each faction. Still, step in the right direction, certainly.

Seems we’ll be fine on that. Surely gonna be interesting, though. I dunno how I’d feel about rerolling just to choose a different covenant. To me, that sounds like a special brand of torture, especially if it was late in the expansion. If there was even the slightest problem with gear catch-ups, it could be trivially easy or obnoxiously difficult.

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I already have alts of the same class and will be using them to try the different covenants.

Not really to have an edge though, just because I like trying everything I can.

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